For The Love of Comics

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Due to a combination of being incredibly busy at my day job and trying to keep up with books that have been very very hyped (and very very disappointing), my stack of unread issues of Walking Dead has been growing. Then I overheard some people talking about what happened in the latest issue - just general expressions of shock, no particulars - and it was enough to get me to make sure to read issues 44-49 as soon as I got home.

Now I truly feel that these issues are most effective if you don’t see any of it coming, so I’m going to avoid spoilers or hype beyond saying that when Kirkman said nobody is safe, he meant NOBODY IS SAFE, MOTHERFUCKERS! I believed him when he said that, but I had no idea how far he was willing to take it.

Let me tell you folks, he took it almost as far as it could possibly be taken.

I think that’s about as much as I can say without really getting into spoilers, so I’ll just close this part down by saying if you’re not reading Walking Dead, head to your local comic store or book store or Amazon or wherever you like, pick up the trades, fall in love with these characters like I have, and then prepare to have your heart ripped out of your chest and watch Robert Kirkman eat it in front of you.

I realize that there are alot of people who don’t like horror comics in general or zombie books in particular and thus avoid this stuff like the plague, but the point of Walking Dead is not the zombies at all. The setting could just as easily be post-apocalypse America or any other setting that features the breakdown of our society and allows us to examine how the human race behaves when all the rules are thrown out of the window and we have to - in theory - rely on each-other to survive in a harsh environment.

Seriously, check it out.

On another note, I was thinking about how awesome Walking Dead and a few other relatively low-hype books have been at about the same time as RJP made a post on Between The Staples about his disappointment that Final Crisis hasn’t been nearly as “well”-hyped as Secret Invasion. Thinking about those two ideas made me realize that, as of late, quality has seemingly been inversely proportionate to hype and (in my eyes) bullshitting of the audience in comics.

As evidence, I present the awesomeness of stories like Sinestro Corps War, Annihilation, Annihilation: Conquest, Walking Dead, or Planet Hulk (which I didn’t even really hear about until it was almost over and WWH was being hyped) that were very under-hyped in comparison to disappointments like World War Hulk, House of M, Countdown, Miss Marvel, or the first issue of Secret Invasion.

I realize that many will say that it’s very hard to live up to the hype that some of these “events” received, but who’s responsible for the hype? The publishers! Don’t hype quality that you can’t deliver on. This goes right along with not twisting the truth, outright lying, or bullshitting the public, which also happens way too often.

I’m starting to understand why so many people only read independent comics.

Want to blow me away, publishers? Spend more time on developing these ideas and bringing out quality product and less time hyping crap product.

Technorati Tags: Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman, Comics, eat the rich, Over-hype, events, lying to the fans, quality product, your entire family is made of meat

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Blog@Newsarama (who, incidentally, quoted me awhile back regarding Batman’s maybe-death), has a Day-One report from Wizard World Texas written by Aron Head from EvilBastard.net.

The highlights (for me) include:

• Greg Pak’s favorite line from World War Hulk was “I didn’t come to hear you whisper, I came to hear you SCREAM!” Yeah… mine too. That shit was hardcore.
• Senor Pak also says that Hulk’s son, Skaar, will have plenty of adventures on his home planet, but will eventually have an impact on the Marvel Universe as a whole.
• One more from the Pak - he is working on “the most disturbing and challenging project [he has] worked on in any medium,” but is not at liberty to announce it yet.
• Dan Didio says Bart Allen’s story is not yet over. This excites me, since Bart had the most heroic scene in my recent memory; it made me sad that it was his death scene.
• Connor may also be back. Didio’s answer to a question about any plans for the Superclone was “maybe”, which is pretty damn cool, but I wonder what they’ll call him. I’m willing to let DC have “Superclone”, royalty-free, as long as they bring back Conner.

Damn, I can’t wait for Megacon!

tag: Bart Allen, Connor Kent, Dan Didio, Flash, Greg Pak, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Kon-El, Megacon, Skaar, Wizard World Texas, World War Hulk, WWH, Superboy, Superclone

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Image from Wikipedia

I’ve finished reading World War Hulk and… I’m really not sure how I feel about it.

I mean, I guess there really wasn’t any other way to end it. It wouldn’t have made sense for Hulk to kill everyone, because Hulk is not a killer and, even if he was, there wouldn’t be any comics left to publish if Hulk killed everyone.

The Miek thing… I don’t know. I mean, basically sacrificing his home, his race, and ultimately himself (he obviously knew that would be the result of killing Rick Jones), just to keep the Hulk’s rage going, because he believed that it was what the Hulk “needed”? Very odd and I’m not sure that I buy into it.

I know that Miek allowing the Red King’s people to blow up the ship is supposed to redeem the Illuminati, but I’m not sure that it does. I mean, they didn’t plan on killing the Hulk, fine. But they’re still somewhat responsible. They put Hulk on that ship against his will, thus they are responsible for what resulted from their actions.

And Hulk’s “suicide/sacrifice”? Ehhh…. I understand that it was necessary to bring an end to the story, since things couldn’t just go back to normal and he wasn’t going to kill them. I don’t like it, but I’ll accept it. The self-loathing, rage, and ultimate self-sacrificing nature IS in character for him, really.

So here are my revised predictions. From CBR’s interviews with Mark Paniccia and Fred Van Lente, we know that:

Skaar, Son of Hulk looks to be pretty damn cool and Skaar just may be even more powerful than his father, being half Shadowperson and half Gamma-powered Hulk, and is likely to be a must-read for those who loved Planet Hulk

Also…

Incredible Hulk is changing to Incredible Herc and will focus on Hercules and Amadeus Cho while they evade the Initiative and try to find a way to take down SHIELD. Since Cho is in Incredible Herc, it seems that he is most likely NOT the Red Hulk, as I previously guessed.

But this blurb from the Van Lente interview:

Some might wonder why Van Lente and Pak’s collaboration is keeping The Incredible Hulk’s old numbering system instead of launching with a new number #1. “It’s partly because the functions of the Hulk will be in the new adjectiveless ‘Hulk’ series that Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness are doing,” Van Lente explained. “So I think it’s neat that Herc is kind of keeping Hulk’s seat warm. The good news is we keep getting renewed with story arcs so right now there’s no definite end to ‘Incredible Herc’ so maybe ‘Hulk’ will continue on as well.

leads me to believe that Hulk is not planned to run indefinitely and Incredible Herc will eventually go back to being Incredible Hulk. This, combined with the final panel of World War Hulk, leads me to believe that Bruce Banner is not dead and that this image:

Is a before/after split and not a split between two characters,

And that the blacked out man in this image:

is Bruce Banner, as I originally believed, making this image a red herring.

Of course, it is totally possible that the coloring on the final WWH panel was a red herring and I’m totally wrong, but this is my current theory and I’m sticking to it.

For now.

tag: Red Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Marvel, Amadeus Cho, Bruce Banner, Speculation, Rumor, Hercules, Incredible Herc, Hulk, World War Hulk, WWH, Skaar Son of Hulk

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Image from Wikipedia

I suck.

I had this reasonably good review of Powers #26 written up. I had a nice breakdown about the story so far, why it was necessary to have a recap because of the months between issues, and all that. I was smart, witty, concise… I was awesome, people.

And then I somehow deleted it. Then I cried. Then I decided I did not have the energy to do it again, so now you just get my argument for why Hulk is totally justified in killing the entire Illuminati. I hope you’ll survive the disappointment.

Iron Man and his cronies decide that, through accidents and collateral damage, The Hulk is responsible for far too many deaths. They then formulate a plan to trick the Hulk into getting into a spacecraft and then sending him, against his will, to another planet.

Transporting a person against their will is known as kidnapping, by the way.

When the Hulk arrives on the - admittedly wrong - planet, he is beaten, enslaved, and forced to engage in fights to the death. Through skill, cunning, and exemplary leadership, the Hulk escapes his slavery and leads an army of former slaves to overthrow a tyrannical dictatorship and unite an entire planet in peace.

At the moment Hulk has finally attained the peace that he has sought his entire existence, the ship that the Illuminati used to abduct him explodes, not only killing his wife and unborn child, not only the residents of the city around him, but killing the ENTIRE PLANET.

Let me repeat that. They didn’t blow up a town the size of… I don’t know, let’s say Stamford, CT. They ANNHILATED AN ENTIRE PLANET!

The Hulk may have been responsible for alot of deaths, but I’m fairly certain he never destroyed an entire planet.

That’s not mass genocide, people. There’s not even a word for the scale of massacre for which Tony Stark is responsible.

Considering what was done to the Hulk because of the deaths he caused, considering the regulations that have been put on the entire superhuman community as a result of Stamford, is it even possible to go “too far” to punish the people that have done this to the Hulk and his people?

I’ve heard the argument that the Illuminati didn’t intend for the Hulk to end up on that planet or for the ship to blow up. The Hulk didn’t intend the deaths he caused. Robbie Baldwin and the New Warriors didn’t intend for the children in Stamford to die.

In fact, let me give you a scenario here. A bank robber is leaving the scene of a crime and hits a woman and her baby, killing both. Is that bank robber responsible for those deaths? I think we’d all agree that he is. So why would the Illuminati be any less responsible for the deaths caused by their kidnapping of the Hulk?

They’re not.

The Hulk may be unreasonable, he may even be a monster, but he admits that.

Tony Stark is an even bigger monster who tries to hide behind “The Public Good.”

Just another Lex Luthor who needs a beat down.

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